Deconstructing Memory
by milk3002
Summary: Jane isn't the only one coping with memories of Hoyt. Rizzles implied.
1. Chapter 1

**Deconstructing Memory**

**Disclaimer: Rizzoli & Isles and all its parts belong to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, and TNT.**

**A/N: Testing the waters again. Please let me know if there's interest in seeing this continued.**

She glanced down at the watch on her wrist, a habit she performed at the start of each appointment, as if she were afraid to cheat even an extra second out of her allotted time. "Thank you for agreeing to change our schedule," she said with a forced smile. "I know it's early."

"It's your hour, Maura. You can take it any time you like."

Dr. Maura Isles sat rigidly in her chair, willing the muscles in her back to loosen as she stared into the clear green eyes of her psychiatrist, and felt the need to qualify her request to reschedule their sessions. "It's just my work hours can tend to be a little difficult to negotiate. Mornings are best, from what I remember."

The red-haired woman nodded patiently, but a brief glance at her recorder signaled that she was ready to delve into their morning's work and to cease with the formalities. "And how are you feeling about returning to work?"

Maura's practiced response, the one she'd offered to her parents, her boss, even to Jane, floated on the tip of her tongue, but she exchanged it for a more reflective answer, knowing it was futile to offer anything less. Dr. Ellen Cabot was one of the best psychiatrists in Massachusetts, and it didn't take her long to rip beneath the surface of a statement and bare the truth behind it. "I want to go back to work," Maura replied evenly. "I just have to realign my expectations about what it will accomplish."

The green eyes looked at her approvingly, as if she'd said something right. Or maybe Maura just imagined it. "It's perfectly natural to want to gravitate toward a previous routine," Ellen replied.

Their sessions always began like this. Formal and encouraging, up until Ellen sent her right back over the edge that she had worked so hard to grasp, free-falling her back into a dark, deep hole. Dangling her lower and lower into the depths of hell until she was facing Hoyt all over again.

"This is a classic response to post-traumatic stress," Maura replied. "I've read it in hundreds of journal articles. I'm regaining normality based on pre-trauma routine, in hopes that the physical cues will help me regain some balance."

Ellen raised a placating eyebrow, but Maura knew her psychiatrist wouldn't let her linger too long on her clinical constructions. The medical examiner had spent most of her time outside their sessions trying to diagnose herself, but each meeting gave Ellen another opportunity to unravel all of her studious work, taking her right back to square one. "And what were the outcomes of these studies that you read?"

"For most, the associations of pre-traumatic routine only exacerbated the occurrence of flashbacks. Many had increased night terrors. For all of the subjects, it seemed only the passage of time helped." Maura flashed a modest wave of her hand. "And paid professional help, of course."

The psychiatrist allowed a slight smile, but kept her voice level. "Why do you think returning to work will help you?"

Maura's voice wasn't as strong as she wanted it to be. "It's what I know how to do. It's how I help people."

"Has the nature of the work changed for you?"

Maura glanced down at her hands, which sat clasped tightly in her lap. "I'm not thinking about the mechanics of the work." She had been performing only the formal duties of her job, signing paperwork when needed, conferring with an interim director on a weekly basis, but aside from that, she hadn't laid eyes on a cadaver in over two months. "I'm only thinking about what used to make me normal." She shrugged, harnessing the levity in her voice. "Or, whatever passed for normal for a forensic pathologist."

"Tell me what normal means for you."

Maura felt the two of them sliding down that slippery slope. Soon, she would be knee deep in emotions that she had managed to keep at bay since their last appointment. Ellen simply pulled her into them, and left her drowning until she had learned how to navigate them. "Normal is a pretty macabre state in my world," she replied. "I dissect bodies for a living."

"You're a forensic scientist, Maura. You have a whole professional cadre of colleagues who would argue that it is a perfectly normal endeavor."

Maura gave her a slight, albeit unconvincing nod, all too ready to move onto the next tier of their discussion, but something gave her pause. "I don't know where the line is anymore," she said softly. "Between normality and insanity."

Ellen studied her for a moment. She never seemed to be in a rush, and let the silence mirror Maura's words back to her. "Are you comparing yourself to Hoyt?"

"Of course not. He's a much superior surgeon than I am." The laugh that knifed through her throat was painful, and she pressed a hand hard against her temple, as if punishing her mind for such intrusive thoughts. Again, Ellen let the silence engulf them, and Maura worked to fill the void. "Isn't it insane to think of him like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like a man." She wrung her hands in her lap. "He's a monster."

"Maura, he's a man with a deep, permanent psychosis. You utilized a survivor's instinct during your abduction and you're still using it to cope with the aftermath. There is no right or wrong way as long as you are safely processing your emotions."

This is when she changed the course of the conversation, back to something concrete and clinical. Maura could almost see the page right out of the textbook. Not that she was complaining about Ellen's method. She felt better when she could identify what was coming next.

"Have you been sleeping?"

"No. I haven't needed to. No job," she reminded the woman with an apologetic shrug. Her use of irony had gotten much more practiced over the past two months.

"Maura, I think you're as well-versed as I am in the clinical case for sleep," Ellen replied.

"I know my limits. I take a pill every three days."

Ellen sighed. "Before the hallucinations start kicking in, I assume?"

"Benzodiazepine releases too much gamma-aminobutyric acid. I can't wake up right away. I have to be able to wake up." The pills kept her trapped in her nightmares long after she would have normally pulled herself out of them. It was a lack of control that she avoided at all costs.

"Are you feeling any side effects?"

Ellen's words echoed in her mind, their timbre changing, and the office blurred around her until she felt the distinct familiarity of a scene that she never wanted to recall, her breath clinching in her throat as she was thrust backwards in time.

_"Feel any side effects, Doctor?" He crouched down towards her, peering into her half-closed eyes as she struggled to open them, seeing him in a blur of white above her. It was his voice that sent her nervous system into overdrive, attempting to make up for her sluggishness. She yanked her hands, but felt only a sharp pain as the metal handcuffs bit into her wrists, clanking against whatever she was bound to._

_"I'm guessing slight nausea, lethargy, and more than likely a headache just behind the eyes. Correct?"_

_She didn't answer. Her mouth was dry. Her heart felt as if it were about to break through her thoracic cavity._

_"I bet you can figure this one out easily, Doctor. An NMDA receptor antagonist, thirteen parts carbon, sixteen parts hydrogen, dash of iodine, nitrogen, and oxygen."_

_The words barely penetrated the fog in her brain, and she could do little but loll her head against the metal behind her._

_"This will help with the dry mouth and nausea," he said, holding up a water bottle towards her lips. He mistook her reticence for something more sinister, and she felt a sharp sting in her scalp as her hair was yanked backwards. "I have had much experience with unwilling patients," he said. "And I have many, many methods that you don't want me to explore with you." He poured a stream of the liquid into her now open mouth, wrenching her jaw closed with his fingers and pinching her nostrils, forcing the bubbly, carbonated water down her throat. She choked, not able to taste it, and felt her lungs burn._

_"Don't worry," he said, caressing her throat. "It's just soda water." He uncuffed one of her hands, and pressed the bottle into it. "Drink it down. Then eat." He pushed a plate of dry toast towards her._

_She didn't move, but he studied her intently, patiently waiting for the side effects to pass. "How did you pass the time as a little girl?" he asked. "Probably the same as me. Let me take a guess..." He rubbed his hands together, as if playing a game. "Frogs. I bet you dissected a lot of frogs, no?"_

_She tried to keep her eyes on him, her gaze hard, but she could feel her fear trickle through her like a rivulet of cold water. "Where is Jane?" she asked, the river hardening into a frozen line from her throat down to her gut._

_"I assume she is now scouring your home," he answered with a smile. "But why waste our time worrying about that? She'll join us eventually."_

"Maura, tell me where you are."

The calm, patient voice seemed lodged someplace in her brain, as if in a dream, but she had been taught over the past two months to follow it, and she did, concentrating on its tone, the familiarity of it. The question always confused her, the clash of her physical surroundings and mental flashbacks always jarring her out of her memory, but leaving her mildly confused. "I don't know," she responded.

"Breathe," came the response. "And tell me where you are."

It helped sometimes if she focused on her brain. If she recalled where the memories were held, it gave her some sort of control over them, and reminded her that she could make them stop at any moment. "Medial temporal lobe," she whispered. "Precunius, prefrontal cortex."

"Maura, look around you, tell me what you see."

It was as if she was locked in her mind, afraid to say anything for fear that any words would send her spiraling back to that same dark place. She started to speak, but the words came out gargled in her throat and she felt the blood rush towards her cheeks, as if she should be embarrassed at her lack of eloquence.

"Maura, tell me how the couch feels under your fingertips."

Why was her brain betraying her like this? "Soft. Cool and smooth." The touch brought her back, until she could focus on the leather, could focus back on Ellen, who sat across from her, hands still clasped gently in her lap, eyes alert with tempered concern.

"What triggered that for you?"

Side effects. The words echoed in her head, and only after registering Ellen's still questioning gaze did she realize she had not spoken them aloud. "You asked about side effects," she answered. "Hoyt used those same words." She let out a shaky breath, using the process to calm her body, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal. "Flashbacks don't happen to everyone." She had scoured the journals for physiological explanations, wanting to know why her mind seemed so deft at deceiving her.

"They happen to many people, though."

"What's the biological imperative? What is my body getting out of having a flashback? Absolutely nothing. It's a fluke of the brain."

Maura was fully aware that Ellen could more than likely talk at length about the mechanics behind a flashback, but the psychiatrist never delved too long inside of science. "What do you get out of coping through a flashback?"

Maura cocked her head. This was the point during the session when Ellen would test the therapeutic tools they had been working on, to see if they actually were making a difference. The medical examiner always placated her. "I gain control," she replied, knowing that it was the right response. After she confirmed her stability, her ability to deal with the madness that was sure to come, they would delve lower. Pine some of the memories.

Today, however, Ellen took a different route, and the deviation jarred Maura from the resignation of routine. "Have you thought about volunteering at a clinic?" she asked.

Maura felt the anger flash behind her eyes, a response to the panic she felt flutter through her. She shook her head. "No. I can handle decedents. I can't handle patients."

"Have you always told yourself that, or is this since the abduction?"

Ellen didn't mince words. She was technical, and called everything by its true name. For that, Maura was grateful. She had never cared for euphemisms. "I've always had a steadier hand in the lab than I ever did during rotations, or during my volunteer work. It's just where I'm most comfortable."

They must be half way through the session. Ellen abandoned her kid gloves, and went straight for the pain. "

How is your relationship with Jane?"

"Fine." It was an easy question to answer. Jane had been nothing but supportive, and the two had eased back into some semblance of their life together. They punctuated their days with mundane tasks and little pleasures, eagerly embracing anything routine.

Once again, Ellen's silence belied her skepticism, prompting Maura to delve deeper. "We give each other space," the medical examiner replied. "She gives me space to have my sleepless nights, and I give her space to let out her frustration with a marathon jog. It works."

"And you're content with this level of communication?"

"I want us to go forward, not backwards. Jane understands that, after what she went through." Maura felt her face burn.

"Do you compare your abduction to Jane's encounter with Hoyt?"

Her mouth was dry, and she debated taking a sip of the water that sat on the table next to her, but was afraid the shake of her hand would betray her anxiety. "They were different," she replied. Jane had been a hero. She hadn't morphed into the very monster that had trapped her.

"Yes, they were different, which means that you deal with the aftermath differently."

"I just want to prove that I'm the same person that she fell in love with," she said quietly, her hands wrapped around her water glass. "I don't want her to think that Hoyt destroyed me."

"Why would she think that?"

"Because sometimes I think he did."

* * *

><p><em>She heard him taunting her, even as Korsak dragged him out of the house, finally silencing him with a blow to his head. She turned to Frost, her eyes panicked. "Every room," she said, shaking with fear and adrenaline. "Find her."<em>

_She passed through a small hallway, the walls feeling as if they were swallowing her. Closet. Bathroom. She slammed one door after another, her breath hitching after each empty room. Stairwell. Flipping on the switch at the top of the steps, she let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting before descending, the sound of her own breathing eclipsing the silence. She came upon a large room with a metal gurney sitting in the middle of its concrete floor. A dilapidated shelf lined with bottles and scattered with scalpels lined one wall, straight out of a nineteenth century medical text. The sound of water clinked somewhere against a pipe._

_Two doors stood to her right, and she swiped a hand over her brow as she went toward the first one, her gun shaking in her grip as she kicked open the door. A chilling burst of air hit her, chilling her, and then she caught the distinct smell, one that wafted over her whenever Maura opened the refrigerator in the morgue. She gagged, registering the bodies that hung like pieces of meat along the side walls. She stumbled out of the room, fighting the urge to slump to the ground, unable to concentrate on their faces._

_Her eyes caught the last door, and she walked slowly towards it, Maura's name circling in her head like a silent prayer. The room was cold, but not freezer cold, and it was dark, the only light coming in from a small, square window at the top of one wall. She flipped the light._

_She recognized the turquoise blouse. She remembered when she had last seen it, eleven days before, and she felt an unrecognizable sob rip from her throat. Maura didn't move as she approached, simply lifted her head slowly, as if she expected Jane to be standing in front of her._

_"Maura," she said, bending towards the woman._

_"No," the blonde said. "No, you're not here. You're not here. You're not here." She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head, as if willing away a ghost. It was only when Jane reached out and touched the binds at her feet, uttering a soft, 'It's me, sweetheart,' did the hazel eyes flash open, staring blankly for a moment before the tears began to fall._

Jane bolted upright in her bed, the sheets tangled at her feet. She shivered as she registered the cool air against her sweat-soaked skin. Her eyes darted immediately to the empty space next to her. Rarely did she awake from a nightmare and find Maura beside her. More often than not, she found the blonde sitting at the kitchen counter nursing a mug of tea and a medical text, the early hours of the morning ticking away around her.

Jane glanced at her clock, surprised that she had slept through the night. Maura would have left early for her therapy appointment before heading to her office for the first time in over two months. Jane felt the ever-creeping worry that had rattled ever since Maura had first expressed her desire to return to work. She knew Maura the routine. They both did. The only thought that comforted her was that she would be right upstairs. It was the only thought that ever comforted her anymore: the thought that if she was near, nothing bad would happen. She was determined to prove that sentiment true.

* * *

><p>Ellen sat behind her desk, scrolling through the labeled audio files of her sessions with Dr. Isles. She opened one dated two weeks after the medical examiner's rescue, replaying a snippet that she had listened to again and again since the blonde had first sat in her office.<p>

_"There were times when I thought about just ending it for them, there on the table."_

_"Why didn't you?"_

_"Because I didn't have a choice. In that place, he was God."_

It was the only time the doctor had allowed herself to view her survival as anything other than something governed by rational, clinical choices. Maura was a creature of science and order, and Hoyt had interminably destroyed that structure, leaving her to formulate some wholly new equilibrium between mind and reality. She rubbed her eyes, glancing at the clock in the lower right corner of her screen. It was only 8:30, a time when she was normally juggling her office keys and a cup of coffee, only just anticipating the horrors of her day.

* * *

><p>Korsak heard the three muffled bangs, the recoil shooting up his arms, and he felt a sudden, familiar release. He slid his earphones off, as he stared at the human-shaped paper target that hung several yards in front of him. Holes splattered through the paper dummy right between the eyes, his marks so close together was as if they had been made with one bullet instead of three. He laid his gun down on the table beside him, but the shots in his head continued to ring, beckoning forth a memory that he revisited almost daily.<p>

_Hoyt continued calling Jane's name, almost singing it, smiling as Korsak drug him across the wet leaves, away from the house. The blow to the back of his head had not silenced him for long._

_"I can smell her fear from here," he said, inhaling deeply, his feet shuffling along the wet grass as Korsak struggled with his stubborn, dead weight. "Tell me, Detective. Do you think you're too late?"_

_Korsak shoved him hard, the taller, lankier man stumbling to his knees, unable to regain his balance with his hands cuffed behind him. The detective ignored him, keeping his gun trained on him as he waited for backup. He needed to get back inside that house._

_"I'll save you some agony," Hoyt said, smiling up at him from a pile of wet earth. "She's alive. But you're still too late. Just like you were last time, remember? Too late to save my Jane from her pain and suffering. That guilt you carry around with you, Detective, that eats you alive every time you see her scars? That's what Jane will feel now. Forever."_

_The shots rang out, three of them, echoing off the trees, resounding back to him as he lowered his gun and stared into Hoyt's lifeless eyes. Footsteps behind him, the sound of Frost's voice, and he turned calmly, looking back at the younger detective, who stared wide-eyed at the demon that had plagued them all for the last time_.

* * *

><p>"What's this?" Frost asked the uniform officer who sat a small cardboard box, no bigger than a shoebox, on his desk.<p>

"It was sent over by the Forest Hills police. Been in their evidence room, untouched, since the Hoyt case a couple of months ago. This is what happens when you got Barney Fife running your precinct." He shrugged. "Not like it makes any difference, I guess, considering how the case ended."

Frost peered into the box, the black markered name across the evidence bags sending a wave of nausea through his gut. Inside sat a metal box, bagged and dated, along with several small leather bound notebooks, each bagged and dated separately.

Frost glanced back up at the cop, dismissing him with a nod. The man shrugged, seemingly disappointed that he wasn't asked to stay longer, and turned back toward the door. Frost pulled a notebook out of one of the bags, flipping through the pages, which were covered with a black, slanted scrawl.

_"February 5: She is fighting me. As if she has any control in this place. Her first patient is almost ready. A simple procedure, as I plan only to damage the tissue, nothing further. We will see how talented she is when it comes to living, breathing humans. Especially those that bear such a distinct resemblance to our Jane._

_"February 8: Yesterday's debacle has left her with a loss of confidence. Her hands shake, which prevents her from performing an expert stitch. But they live. For now."_

Frost slammed the notebook shut, sliding it away from him. A loud clunk from behind him sent him reeling around, and he gave Korsak a scowl as the older detective settled into his desk.

"What's got you so jumpy?" the gray-haired man asked, giving him his usual scowl. His eyes moved immediately to the books on Frost's desk. "You keeping a diary? What the hell's all this?" His eyes narrowed as he caught the name on the evidence bags.

Frost looked up at him, his voice sullen. "A ghost from the past."

* * *

><p>Maura passed by the glass windows of the lab, glancing inside briefly. It was stark, sterile, and clean, unlike the dank room that plagued her memories. There, she had constantly heard the sound of dripping water as she worked, its repetitive, steady sound marking the passage of time as Hoyt watched her. Swallowing the memory away, she walked into her office, hitting the lights. Nothing had changed, other than the piles of reports that now sat on her desk, ready to be filed.<p>

She slipped her coat off, hanging it on the rack by her door, drinking in the familiarity of the space that she had helped design. It was a sign of control, of autonomy, a promise that, at least in this place, she could be what she always had been. Something new sat in the bright orange chair that sat near her desk, and she smiled down at a small stuffed turtle, a card sitting atop its furry shell. Recognizing Jane's handiwork, she flipped open the card, its message simple, sweet, and containing just the right amount of levity to make her smile.

With a deep breath, she walked behind her desk and slipped on her lab coat, ready to face the dead for the first time in two months. It was time to reclaim her life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Maura leaned against Jane's midsection, her partner's muscular frame reassuring against her back. She had only been paying haphazard attention to the movie flickering across their screen, but nevertheless took comfort in the light, comedic banter, the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, the mundane normality that permeated her surroundings.

Her thoughts had drifted mostly around her job. She had survived her first week back, although it had required nothing more than an occasional microscopical analysis or a pile of uncompleted paperwork. Still, simply the routine of showing up each morning, dawning her white coat, had been enough to draw her out of the caverns of her mind.

Tracing Jane's fingers with her own, her attention was suddenly rapt over the delicate contours of her skin. She followed the line of them, rubbing circles around the knobs of Jane's knuckles before coasting to her palms, where she caught the telltale circular smoothness of her scars. She had studied them before, at times launching into a full-fledged explanation of the composition of scar tissue, but now they recalled some other memory to mind, and the normality of her evening and Jane's measured breath against her neck, slipped away.

_"The question of the hour," he said, raising his thick eyebrows at her. "Did I hit any major tendons?" The girl's whimpers were steady as she lay on the hard metal gurney, her forehead pale, and her panicked eyes darted nervously between Maura, Hoyt, and the knife held rigidly against her neck._

_Maura had first noticed the girl's wavy brown hair, her eyes blurring with panic, and she wondered if Hoyt had finally delivered on the promise that he whispered into her ear every time he visited her. But it wasn't Jane, just like it wasn't Jane the time before, and she felt a pulsing, guilty relief sift through her. It wasn't Jane._

_She felt the light brush of the taser against her back, just a simple warning, which embellished the familiar burn at her shoulder. It seemed to be his favored way of moving her from one place to another._

_Her eyes cleared, and she noticed the wounds on the girl's hands: bloody circles at the very center of her palms, and she unintentionally backed into him, the air sluicing from her chest. His hands caught her shoulders. "Ah, Doctor. It seems as if you're familiar with this type of injury."_

_She felt him press behind her, looking over the top of her head at the young girl. The second man wielding the knife, who she had never heard speak, stared down at her, his lips pursed into a calm, even line._

"_The rules are the same." His familiar whisper brushed against her ear. She had rehearsed again and again the ways she could overpower him, or incapacitate the man with the knife, but her arms stayed uselessly at her sides as Hoyt uncuffed her hands, the air biting into her raw and chafed wrists. She would never get to the knife in time._

_He pressed her forward, to the small table of tools available to her. No anesthetic, only the most crude needle and thread, a small bottle of saline, and the same natural concoction of antibiotic as last time. And the time before that. She didn't look back at him, and couldn't look at the girl, but kept her attention solely on the small tray of utensils. He would get impatient if she didn't begin soon._

_The girl looked at her no differently than she looked at Hoyt: with fear, hatred. "I'm sorry," Maura uttered, again and again, as she stitched the wound, which hadn't penetrated any major tendons, a deliberate move by him. Time didn't exist as she worked, her skull tightening against her brain as she tried to steady her hands. Reciting variables in her head in a vain attempt to block out the girl's wrenched cries._

_He was constantly behind her, his attentive eye directed on her work, the taser an ever-present reminder at her back. He only spoke when she was done: "Very good, Doctor." Then she felt the heat against her neck, the uncontrollable spasm, and then the hard, coldness of the concrete floor. Another blast, and she didn't fight the blackness._

She was startled awake by the sound of her name and she subconsciously pressed a hand to her neck. "Hey, sweetheart, you fall asleep?" Jane asked, glancing down at her and running a soothing hand over her bare arm. "I admit, it was a Netflix queue fail. Next time you can choose."

Maura forced her attention to the screen, where a scroll of credits was now rolling across a gag reel. She imagined the images of her dreams swirling down a drain. "Tell me the girl ended up with her best friend," she said, the banter already removing her from the grotto of her memory.

Above her, Jane shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. Once again, we had to make do with subtext."

Maura smiled, leaning up and turning to face Jane. "Heteros one million and one, lesbians, zero," she said, enjoying Jane's grin. She hadn't been responsible for eliciting much mirth from her partner lately, and she relished what levity she could bring to the conversation. She turned fully, straddling Jane's long, outstretched legs. "Do you want to go for a run tomorrow?" she asked.

Jane put a hand behind her head and looked up at her curiously. "How come you don't do yoga anymore?"

Maura averted her gaze, but only for a moment, an excuse coming quickly to mind. "I just haven't been in the mood," she said vaguely. "It's too quiet."

Jane nodded. "Well, not that I'm complaining," she said. "I just wondered, that's all." Still, Maura caught the doubt that flickered through her eyes. "You ready for bed?"

Maura leaned in to kiss her. It was a small gesture, nothing remotely resembling the passion that had motivated their intimacy before, but it was a start. She had to ease into physicality now with slower, more tentative touches that she almost always initiated. At times she found herself craving Jane's natural aggression, but each time she shied away from requesting it, unsure if she could handle it. She deepened the kiss, her thoughts conscious of the hands on her hips, the softness of a thumb brushing across her skin. Opening her eyes, but not moving away, she leaned in further, cupping Jane's face with both hands, then letting them move through the dark, unruly curls.

An image knifed through her mind, of dark, splayed hair against metal, and it siphoned off her throat for a fleeting second before she willed it away. It was enough, though, and she felt Jane tense slightly underneath her as she sensed the shift. Maura leaned back, accompanying her words with an apologetic smile. "Bed sounds good."

Jane's hands stayed around Maura's waist, even as she swung her long legs off the couch. "You'll need some rest," she said with a smile. "Tomorrow I'm taking you on the sweatiest, hardest run you've ever been on. I found a new route over by the harbor." She rose, lifting Maura higher on her hips, and headed toward the bedroom. Maura buried her head in her shoulder, inhaling the scent of the curls, the scent that she only associated with Jane, the scent that kept her memories safetly at bay.

* * *

><p>Jane huffed loudly up Maura's narrow driveway, glad their run had finally come to an end. Her partner was running faster than she ever had, and despite the natural advantage of her long legs, Jane had to work to keep up with her. "Jeez, Maur," she heaved, wiping sweat from her forehead. "You trying to qualify for the Olympics?"<p>

Maura smiled back at her, already bent over in a low stretch. "It's important to have goals."

Jane attempted to mimic her girlfriend's warm-down, but instead toppled playfully into the grass at her feet, staring up at her. Maura raised one foot behind her, stretching a well-defined hamstring. Over the past few months, Maura's compact body had become more even thinner, her smooth curves morphing into firm, wiry muscle. Jane had mentioned the transformation once before, and Maura had shrugged, stating tersely, "I'm more powerful." The hardness in her eyes had kept Jane from mentioning it again. She heard the sound of her mother's door opening off to the side of the terrace, and she angled her head towards her.

"Wow, the two of you look like you just ran the Boston Marathon," she said with a wave as she walked over to them.

"Hey, Ma," Jane said from her perch on the ground. Her mother's constant presence in her life had long been a fine balance between bothersome and comforting, but lately she had come to rely on the small interruptions, as if they smoothed over the small wrinkles of pain that sometimes surfaced in unforseen moments. Angela had offered to move to a new place, but she quickly put a stop to the idea, claiming that Maura wanted her to stay; in truth, it was Jane that needed her mother nearby. "You want to have breakfast with us?"

"Is that your way of asking me to _make_ breakfast?"

Jane grinned. "Maybe." Maura hovered over her, taking one of her legs and bending it inward, forcing her to stretch, even as she lay flat on her back. "Awwww man," she moaned. "That feels good. Do the other one."

Maura obliged, looking up at Angela. "You are more than welcome to join us for breakfast, but you do not, under any circumstances, have to help make it." She gave Jane a corrective glance before easing off her leg and helping her off the ground.

"I don't mind helping," Angela offered, taking a step toward the small inlet of a garden that Maura had painstakingly pined over for the first part of spring. "Looks like your roses should be coming in soon," she observed with a smile.

Jane watched as Maura joined her mother, both of their heads bent towards the still unseen blooms. Maura had always taken an interest in maintaining the beauty of her landscaping, but it mainly came in contracting the duty out to gardeners and paid experts. This new project, however, had all but consumed her, and Jane had spied her on many afternoons pulling weeds and sifting through dark soil, shaping it into small, colorful burst of nurtured life. Maura reached up to one, thorns sticking defensively out of its thin green stalk.

"Oh, that one got you," Angela said, reaching for Maura's wrist, but thinking better of it, simply pointed. "You're thumb's bleeding."

Maura stared down at it, seemingly lost. Jane moved toward her, focused not on the small dot of red that bubbled from the injured thumb, but on the emptiness in the hazel eyes that stared down at it. Maura had never been a fidgeter, but over the past three months Jane had caught her fumbling with her rings, or cracking her knuckles, or simply staring down at her hands as if they were an extension of her body with which she wasn't familiar. "Maur? Want to go grab a BandAid?"

Maura's eyes flashed up at her, and she nodded. "Yes," she said authoritatively, as if a small prick from a rose bush needed her full medical acumen. "Yes. I'm just going to wash it with some antiseptic and wrap it." She nodded again, mechanically, before moving around Jane and heading towards the back door, her sneakers padding lightly along the brick patio.

Jane was suddenly conscious of her mother's eyes on her, but she kept her own gaze straight ahead, focusing on the small buds of a yellow flower that had already begun to bloom. Maura had told her the name of it a thousand times, but she couldn't ever keep them straight. "What's this one?" she asked, pointing to it.

"Yellow loosestrife," Angela replied.

"That's a horrible name," Jane said. "I don't feel bad about not remembering that one."

"You want me to start on breakfast?" Angela asked, placing a casual hand on Jane's arm. Her mother had learned not to pry as hard, checking in with both of them with small, simple touches of warmth.

"Yeah," Jane nodded, grinning before reaching out and wrapping a sweaty arm around her mother's fresh shoulder.

"Oh, _Jane_," Angela humphed, shrugging off the wet hug. "Go take a shower, why don't you." Jane chuckled, following her inside the house, shower water echoing from the bedroom.

"Maura, leave the water on!" she called, leaving her mother at home in the kitchen as she made her way down the hallway, pulling off her sweaty t-shirt. Her phone rang out against her running shorts, startling her as the vibrations coursed up her thigh; she had forgotten she had it on her. "Rizzoli," she said, already expecting the voice on the other end, signaling the end of a relaxing morning.

Walking in the bedroom, she glanced curiously at Maura, who was quickly drying off. "Hey," she said, looking up at her as she retrieved ducked into the closet, wrapping the towel around her still damp torso. "You'll drive?"

They had discussed this part of the job, but Jane had insisted on Maura letting the interim assistant take field calls, at least until she had been back for a couple of weeks. Judging by the speed with which her partner was getting dressed, however, it was clear that she was intent on taking this particular call.

"Maur, I thought you were leaving the field visits up to Pike for now."

"No need," she said. "I told him I could handle them." She pulled on a pair of jeans and slipped a loose top over her head, looking back at her. "I can handle it," she repeated.

Jane knew better than to argue. After all, she had fought to go back to work after her own ordeal with Hoyt, and had silenced anyone who thought they knew better with a few well-placed expletives and stubborn tirades. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't worried. They knew nothing about the scene. Anything could cause a flashback, which is the last thing Maura needed, especially on the job, surrounded by a gaggle of police and crime scene techs.

"Maura, is this really a good idea?" she asked, pushing her limit. "It's one thing to be in the office behind a microscope, and it's another to be at the scene. I'm saying this as a colleague," she qualified, although she knew that wasn't remotely true; as far as she was concerned, there were no lines anymore between personal and professional.

Maura closed the gap between them, the pursed line of her lips softening, but her eyes hard and clear. "Jane. I hear your concern, but I'm going to make this decision, okay? And I want to take the call. It's my job and I want to do it."

Jane sighed, unable to argue, and attempted to channel some sort of therapeutic response, one of many that she had in her arsenal now.

"_Maura wants to go back to work." Her counselor stared back at her, his eyes neutral. She didn't like to refer to him as a therapist. He was simply a psychologist on the force that she'd talked to several times after her encounter with Hoyt. Sure, the first time, her Chief had mandated that she do it as a condition of returning to work, but she stuck with it, enjoying the space it gave her to sort and separate some of the messy, intransigent emotions she still felt. After Maura's abduction, it had been less than a month before she called and requested to see him again._

"_That's a healthy response," he said. "You wanted to return to work as well."_

_She sighed. He was being rational. "How would you feel if your wife wanted to return to work after something like this?" she asked. "Return to being a medical examiner?"_

"_We're not talking about me, Jane," he said. "But I'm curious as to how you feel about it."_

_She balled her hands into fists in her lap. "I'm nervous as hell about it. If I had my way, I'd want her to become a kindergarten teacher or a veterinarian or something. I'd want her the hell away from all of this."_

"_If the job is so dangerous, then why do you do it?"_

_She laughed. "Right. Point taken."_

_He looked down at the floor for a moment, then leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "Look, Jane, we want our partners to be safe. That's understandable. But we also want them to be fulfilled. And that requires trust in the other person to be the best arbiter of what is right for them. Do you trust Maura?"_

"_Of course I do."_

"_Then trust that this is what's going to help her. And if it doesn't, then you'll be there to help her figure out what will. Not supporting her in this will only drive her further away."_

"So you'll drive?" she heard Maura ask, her wet hair pooling on her shoulders and leaving dark spats along her shirt.

"Yeah," she said, hoping she was doing the right thing by simply doing nothing. "I'll drive."

* * *

><p>Susie glanced up as her boss swung the doors open to the lab, her scrubs draped loosely over her front, goggles already in place. She picked up her clipboard, readying her pen. "Hey, Doc," she said. "Decedent's ready." Her boss, nodded, her attention directed toward the body lying on the slab in front of them.<p>

He was male, a bullet wound to the shoulder and lower sternum. It seemed a simple enough case, but when she had offered to help with the autopsy, Dr. Isles had studied her a quick moment before silently nodding. It wasn't their normal routine, but they hadn't necessarily had time to reestablish such a thing in the short week that she had been back.

She had kept as much of a grip on the office as she could, stepping up to help Dr. Pike, the interim ME, as much as she could. Things had generally run themselves, as they tend to do, and the rest of the techs gave her no trouble. Detective Rizzoli, of course, had appeared in the lab less, and Susie had even missed seeing her around. When the detective did pop in, usually to ask about a case, she always felt awkward asking her anything about Doc. The two of them usually just stuck to the facts.

But it was Detective Rizzoli's face that night, at the precinct, that she couldn't seem to get out of her mind.

She paced in front of her, several police officers buzzing about her desk. "Susie, what time did you leave?" she asked, her voice thin and ragged.

"_I think it was about 6:30, 6:45," she said. "We had to classify some fibers, and it took longer than expected. Doc – Dr. Isles – was stuck around in her office until we finished."_

"_Did she leave with you?" Rizzoli asked._

She shook her head. "No, I stuck my head in her office to say goodbye, but she didn't leave with me."

"_Did you notice anything suspicious when you left?" She squinted toward her. "Did you park in the deck?"_

_She shook her head, feeling as if she were disappointing the tall detective. "No, I take the train," she said. "But I didn't notice anything suspicious." Of course she hadn't been looking. She had been fiddling with her iPod. She felt foolish, racking her memory, trying to remember anything. "She said she needed to pick up her dry cleaning," she said. "The one that's open until 8:00, over on Halsted."_

_Jane looked up at her, oddly. "She was picking it up today?" she asked._

_She sifted through the memory, searching for more words, more corroboration to make sure she wasn't making things up, just to offer something remotely helpful. "Yes," she said, firmly. "She got a call from them. So she was going to pick it up."_

_Detective Rizzoli latched onto her words, so much so that she leaned over to her, pressing down against the metal table. "Did she tell you she got a call from them?"_

_"Yes," she said. "She mentioned it while we were in the lab."_

"_Frost!" she called, her voice ratcheting up a notch. "I need phone records for Geraldi's Dry Cleaning, now. What about the other records?"_

_Detective Frost looked up at her, a phone receiver pressed to his ear. "They'll be here within the hour," he replied, his voice strained. The words seemed to do nothing to comfort Detective Rizzoli, however. Her eyes stayed frantic, her fingers fidgeting across the expanse of her palms. She appeared like a frightened, dangerous animal._

The doors swung open behind her, startling her, but Maura appeared unfazed, and greeted Detective Rizzoli with a nod. "I figured you'd be down here within the hour," she said.

"Just call me over-eager," Rizzoli replied, giving Susie a friendly nod. "I just wanted to see the work-up on the bullets," she said, standing next to her, crossing her arms over her chest. "How you doing, Susie?" she asked, and she was surprised by her cordiality.

"I'm – I'm okay," she said, glancing over at Doc. "We're just beginning," she said. "Might be awhile before we come up with the bullet."

"She knows that," Doc said from where she perused the rest of the body. She was concentrating, but her tone was light. "Jane, are you sure you aren't needed upstairs, or are you intent on supervising?" Doc looked up, sharing a look with Rizzoli, their usual tacit, verbal cues that were generally all but lost on her.

Jane glanced over at her, only slightly sheepishly. "Susie, do you need my supervision?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"No, Detective Rizzoli," she replied, eliciting a slight laugh from his boss. For a moment she thought she overstepped her bounds, but the detective grinned, her hands on her hips.

"I didn't think so," she said, walking back towards the doors. "Maur, give me a call the minute you got something," she called over her shoulder.

"Always," Doc replied, turning her attention back to the cadaver, focused, scientific, and finally back in her element.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Maura fingered the report lying on her desk, her own neat, but hurried handwriting staring back at her. The small, straight lettering and the oval-shaped loops said that she was practical, well-adjusted, rational. The haphazard, glaringly intrusive thoughts that impeded her brain, however, proved otherwise.

"Through-and-through ballistic pathway through the primary bronchus and the aorta," she read, the sound of her voice bringing her back to her task of finishing her report. Her concentration was at times thin, almost non-existent now. "Quite efficient." The young man's heart would have stopped within minutes, leaving his organs to exhaust the rest of his oxygen supply before shutting down completely. Death would have come quickly for him.

Hoyt would have never utilized such an efficient method.

Maura's head snapped imperceptibly, as if purging her mind from the frightening flare of insight into the monster who still wormed his way inside her at odd, quiet moments. The remembered hiss of his voice was palpably thick in her mind, as if he still stood behind her, whispering, pouring venom into her ear. She stood, her chair pushing back with a grating scrape, and paced. There was a time when she sat for hours, absorbed in her work, but now she paced often, perusing her paperwork as she moved.

A knock at her door made her turn, and she waved Susie inside, plastering a practiced, authoritative smile on her face. "What can I do for you, Ms. Chang?"

Her assistant's eyes, normally bright and direct, were downcast as she fidgeted with a manila file folder. "I just need your signature on a final LPMR," she answered. "Unfortunately, Dr. Pike failed to sign it. The state just sent it back."

"Oh." Maura reached for it, sharing a colluding smile with the young tech who had become more of a deputy of sorts under her mentorship. "Who would have thought, with such obsessive-compulsive tendencies, that Dr. Pike would forget to sign anything." Her attempt at humor seemed to make the younger woman more uncomfortable, as she shifted her heavy, black-rimmed glasses higher onto her nose. Maura reached once again for the folder.

"It's one of the six," Susie said quietly, finally looking up at her. "Hoyt's six."

The air around her thinned. Maura swallowed, her lips frozen in an unnatural smile. "That's okay," she managed, reaching for the folder, a tremor running through her fingers. As if to prove that she was, indeed, okay, she opened it, letting her eyes scan over the page. As the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this was her duty: to officially sign off on death, the administrative equivalent of the Reaper. Guilt hung heavily from her, the white pages of the file weighing her down. She had yet to seek out the records of the women that had hung amidst the shadows of her mind like ghostly cobwebs. Shame had effectively keeping her curiosity at bay.

A bold, typed name jumped out at her from the top of the page: Leslie Crenshaw. She fumbled into the pocket of her white coat, searching for a pen, a way to keep her fingers busy as she found the blank line at the bottom that awaited her signature. Scrawling her name shakily across the bottom of the page, she quickly tucked it back inside, enveloping it back in the folder, but the name echoed in her mind as a ghostly meditation.

Susie reached for it. "I'll file it," she offered, a finality in her tone.

Maura stared down at her hand, which didn't seem to want to give it up. "No," she protested, the word leaking from her throat, even as she wanted the girl, and her name, far from her. "I'll hold onto it for now."

"Are you certain, Doc?"

Maura looked up, morphing her mouth into a thin line of authority. "Yes. Yes, I'll take care of it." Susie glanced once more at the offending folder before nodding. She turned, heading back through the doorway to the lab, her rubber-soled shoes almost silent on the tiled floor. Maura sank into her chair, fingering the edge of the folder, the name burning itself into the repetitive horror reel running through her mind, as she wondered which pair of terrified eyes this particular name belonged to. She had never learned their names. He had seen to that.

_He stood behind her, his presence prickling the back of her neck. The girl on the metal slab jumped as she pressed the sponge of iodine against the slash along her pale arm. Her brown eyes were now clenched tightly shut, but she had looked up at Maura with the same hatred as the others had, the same fear she had reserved for their captors._

_"What is your name?" Maura asked quietly. Hoyt gave no warning, and she kept talking, wanting to make some connection with the girl on the table. She wasn't a monster; for some reason, she needed them to know that._

_The girl's terrified eyes flicked behind Maura toward Hoyt, then at the jagged, stained knife pressed against her neck. Her eyes closed again as her lips wavered. "Jane."_

_Coldness ripped through Maura, but she had learned to remain calm, storing fear, terror, and disgust in the pit of her stomach. Hoyt excelled at taunting her: with pain, with psychosis, with drugs, and now, with her own victims. Moving her hand slowly toward the table beside her, she reached for the bottle of ethanol that she knew would be there. She uncapped it, moving her already saturated sponge back to it, aware of Hoyt's position behind her, studying her every move. The liquid sloshed gently in the bottle, the only sound in the cavernous room besides the painful pants of the brown-haired girl. Maura shot her arm forward, expelling the noxious contents of the bottle towards the second man's eyes. His pained grunts, and the clink of the knife as it fell, propelled her backward into Hoyt as she slashed erratically with the blunt scalpel she jerked from the table. She slipped into the chaos, welcoming it with flailing, jerky limbs after hours of silence. The clink of the knife resounded in her head; she had to get to it first._

_A foot rammed into her, and the sound of his laughter mixed with her own pleas as her unheroic ploy came to an end."Please don't hurt her, please don't hurt her," she mumbled blindly._

_Hoyt's face loomed over her, his jagged teeth showing through his lips. "Too late."_

She jumped at the sound of a voice outside her door. Her brain had trouble processing it until she glanced over, her eyes still wide, her shoulders rigid, half expecting to see Hoyt's image in the doorway. Jane walked briskly towards her, carrying what looked to be lunch, but she tossed it carelessly onto the desk, her brown eyes narrowed in concern as she knelt in front of her. "Another one?" she asked lowly.

Maura nodded, waving her hand as her breath returned to her. "I'm okay." Jane had heard those words so many times, Maura wondered if they meant anything to her anymore.

"Do you want to talk it out?"

She shook her head vigorously, pointing instead at the clear plastic salad container, its bed of green sprinkled with tomatoes, carrots, and a plethora of brightly colored ingredients. "That looks exquisite."

Jane's eyes held hers for a minute, but finally caved, accepting her need to change the subject. "All the colors of the rainbow, so it must be good," she sighed. "Either that, or it's just a gay salad."

Maura smiled, edging the container closer. They both knew she didn't care where it came from; her appetite was much less avant-garde now. As long as it was in some way healthy, she ate it, most of the time not tasting it, but knowing it was essential to replenish the empty cells running through her.

"But," Jane said, flourishing something else in a small, white paper bag, "I also went down the street and got you some macarons from that place you like. I forget the name. 'La aureola du pasties' or whatever it is."

"You got me macarons from Le Petite Patisserie?" Maura asked, standing and reaching for the bag with an enthusiasm that she didn't know she had left in her. It had been a long time since she'd craved anything, but the thought of the tiny, delicate cookies sparked an epicurean longing that had long disappeared. It was the feeling of wanting something that moved her, more so than the promise of the pastries themselves.

"On a whim, yeah, but I still expect full credit for it. Consider this premeditated sweetness."

"Duly noted," Maura replied, plucking a cookie out of the bag, and smiling widely at her, hoping to convey her gratitude for more than just the simple gesture. "You have to try one."

"No, thank you," Jane declined with a grin. "I prefer my desserts a little greasier and with a lot more cream than that. I've got a pack of Ho-Hos waiting for me at my desk."

Maura rolled her eyes, taking a dainty bite in to the cookie, for the moment forgetting about the salad. Jane rolled her shoulders, wincing. "Did you pull something?" Maura asked.

Jane's hand went up to her shoulder, but brushed off any discomfort with a shake of her head. "Damn these young perps," she said, pursing her lips. "It gets harder and harder to chase them down. They keep getting younger and I keep getting older."

Maura sat the bag of pastries down on her desk, rounding it and guiding Jane towards a chair. "You must have pinched something," she observed, her fingers already working a tight ball of nerves along the back of Jane's neck, the explanation seeping from her almost effortlessly. "More than likely the rotatoris cervicus longus. It connects to the thoracic nerve." As if demonstrating, she let her fingers trace down the middle of Jane's back, smiling briefly as she felt her girlfriend lean into the touch. Her ability to care for Jane had been fleeting lately, and she jumped at the chance to offer a comforting touch.

"All for nothing, too. The little twerp didn't give us anything to go on once we finally caught him." Jane craned her neck again, as if she could leach all the pain from her shoulder by simply repeating the same uncomfortable motion.

"Sit still, and let me help," Maura insisted, still working her fingers into the knot.

"Nah, it's fine," Jane replied easily, bolstering out of the touch. "It's just a little pain." Maura nodded, but felt herself drifting, a chill running through her at the sudden familiarity of her partner's words. She focused on the blue of Jane's shirt and the feel of it beneath her fingers. "You know what they say," Jane continued with a sigh. "No pain, no gain. Gives me more motivation." She chuckled, but the words sounded hollow in Maura's brain, as they slowly took on a much more sinister voice.

_"Jane reacted well to physical pain. She fought it well. As I hurt her, I could watch the emotions play out in her eyes." The scalpel traveled upwards along the edge of her jaw and came to rest at her temple. "But you are different, Doctor." The blade dug in slightly as he twisted it. "You hold all of your pain here. Don't you?" She didn't answer. "So do I."_

_He fished in his pocket, something crinkling, like a candy wrapper, and she caught the plastic bag of a syringe, which he extricated quickly. "Why don't we get to know each other a little better?" She shook her head first, until the movement seemed to govern her entire body, jerking her legs, hoping to get him off of her. He yanked her head to the side, the familiar sting prickling her scalp._

_"If your pulse beats any faster, we won't have any need for this," he said, holding up the syringe. "Another test: twenty-two parts carbon, twenty-eight parts hydrogen, two parts nitrogen. A dose should induce euphoria and a prolonged analgesic state." He grinned, his smile curling the deep etches along his mouth. "What is it?"_

_Again, she used the silence to her advantage, and offered him nothing._

_"You have Jane's resolve, but I expected nothing less. In less than three minutes, Doctor, you will be an open book. We are going to get to know one another, otherwise, how will we work together?" His eyebrows raised as he squirted the air out of the needle and pushed it into her neck._

A hand on her own, tracing small circles onto her flesh, pulled her back. She cringed, but as Jane's voice penetrated the fog of memory, she eventually relaxed into it. "Maura."

She blinked, glancing down, her fingers now rigid against Jane's shoulders. She had turned, looking up at Maura with caring eyes. "You back with me?"

Maura nodded, taking a step back as Jane got to her feet, guiding her gently to the couch. "Tough afternoon, huh?" she asked lightly, but her gaze was dark. "Something trigger it?"

"No," Maura said, swallowing the lump in her throat as she sat. "No, sometimes they just randomly come."

"You can share them, you know."

"I do. I share them with Dr. Cabot."

"You can share them with me."

It hadn't always been such a foreign thought, but the idea of sharing Hoyt's psychosis, his desire to hurt Jane even more, wasn't something Maura was willing to share. She hadn't shared the details of Hoyt's taunting, his words, with anyone other than her therapist. They hadn't found a way into her statement, or in official records, nothing. They were her memories and hers alone.

It was a paltry promise, but it was all she had. "You can field the next one," she said with an attempted smile. She pressed her hand onto Jane's knee. "For now, how about you let me work the rest of that muscle, okay?"

As Jane turned, she wondered when her body had begun to allow her to lie.

* * *

><p>Korsak flipped through the leather-bound book, something ball shaped in his throat. He had meant to take the book down to evidence after taking it from Frost, but instead had left it in his desk, almost like a reminder that he had done the right thing in killing such a cold-blooded psychopath. He had done the world a favor, avenged Jane and Maura. Rather than heroic dreams or exalted visions, though, he had nightmares.<p>

He had seen a lot on the job over the past twenty-seven years, but he had seen it all through a wall that kept he and his fellow officers separated from the victims he saw each day. Until Hoyt.

He still sometimes saw Jane's wide, frightened eyes, and heard her quick, pained breaths as Hoyt loomed over her. That day, Korsak had managed to get to her in time, but by then Hoyt had already done his damage. Jane had bounced back almost too quickly, as if by brushing off the encounter she could make up for how powerless she felt when it happened. Of course, Korsak never told her, but he was the one who felt absolutely powerless.

He finally recognized that his opaque wall was just a thin, sheer sheet of nothing after Hoyt struck again. Watching Jane suffer through that powerlessness all over again, at the hands of the same madman that had already gotten to her, had ripped a hole in him. Knowing what he was capable of, and still trying to stave off the worst of Jane's fears as they searched for Maura, had been the hardest thing he'd ever done on the job. Killing Hoyt that last day had been the easiest.

He fingered the journal, his thumb tapping it before he opened it, letting it fall to whatever nightmare of a page it chose.

_February 10:_

_Her mind is brilliant. She has a knowledge of the human body that I haven't seen in awhile. She has studied it so much over the years, that she knows exactly what her pain will be like before I even touch her. It takes her much less time to obey than the others. I sometimes wonder if the hours of solitude bother her; she is, after all, a loner. A recluse, like me._

A shuffling startled him, and he slammed the notebook closed as Frost walked past him. "Well, we got the prints off the gun," the younger detective called cheerfully, waving a sheet of paper. The levity left his voice as he caught a glimpse of the book, and his eyes suddenly fell. " I thought you took that downstairs."

That had, of course, been his intention. To walk the book down to evidence and to lock it away with the other reminders of Hoyt's crimes: boxes of them that had come to line more than just a shelf in the basement, but had come to settle into the folds of his subconscious.

"Are you going to tell Jane about that?" Frost ask, voicing the question Korsak had already relayed over and over in his own mind.

"Of course I'll tell her," he said quickly, surprised by his answer, as if it had simply dropped into his lap. "I have to tell her," he repeated, this time more resigned. Jane wasn't one to backtrack down memory lane like he was, and sift through old evidence boxes. But, if she ever found out the notebook had been withheld, she would feel even more betrayed. Terror was something she could handle, but betrayal, that was something different entirely. He didn't know many good cops who could handle it well. "The two of you get that bullet today?"

"Yeah. Maura's finishing up the ballistic pathway to match it."

Korsak nodded. "Good. Damn, it's nice not to have to stay on Pike about this stuff."

"Hell yeah," Frost agreed. "It's good to have her back." His head sank for a second, and his legs soon followed as he slumped into his chair, turning his attention to his computer. Korsak didn't quite remember when they started calling the medical examiner by her first name, rather than by her more formal title.

"Hey losers," Jane said as she breezed by him toward her desk. "Maura said the angle of the wound matches where we found it at the apartment. I'd say we've got enough to charge." She glanced at Korsak. "Who's going to do the honors of making an arrest?"

Korsak felt Frost's eyes on him, but rather than give an answer, he doled out orders. "Frost, you order the warrant." He glanced up at Jane, all too aware of the leather weight in his desk drawer. "You got a minute?"

The question caused her to pause, but Jane was more than a pro at covering up weakness. "For you, Sergeant Detective Korsak, I've got two minutes." She grinned, but he saw her shoulders stiffen. Suddenly, she seemed to understand that whatever he was about to say wasn't something she wanted to hear in the company of her peers. "What?" she asked quietly.

Korsak stood, gripping the journal in his hand, pointing her toward the interrogation room that had become like a personal office for her during the eleven days of hell that Maura had been missing. Her eyes, narrowed and thin, were on him as she stepped into the room. "What are you not telling me?" He had seen that look before, one of uncertainty and fear, and he hated being responsible for bringing that look back.

_"What are you not telling me?" she asked, her voice a pitch higher than normal as she looked from Frost back to him. Stalling was something he never did, but for some reason the words hung in his throat. "Just say it. What did you find?"_

_He spoke, knowing his words would set her onto a path toward her own private hell. "Hoyt's no longer at Walpole. There was a mishap with the processing of a deceased prisoner. Hoyt took the guy's place, probably with the help of a guard named Sean McEnroe. They just found the body of the dead prisoner."_

_Jane tightened, her whole torso curling over as she placed her hands on her knees, as if fighting a wave of nausea. When she rose again, breathing hard, her mouth crumpling even as she tried to regain her composure, he felt a protective wave rush through him, and he stood. She put her hand out, keeping him at bay. "I want statements from every fucking person at that prison. I want a warrant for the guard's house, now." Her voice cracked, but she continued, her chest heaving. "They have a ten-hour head start."_

_"I already put in for the warrant, Jane, we should have any minute. Frost is already on his way to the prison."_

_They stood, facing each other, Jane's expression morphing from its authoritative determination into something wholly vulnerable, and she backed into the wall. Her knees collapsed, and she sunk slowly, her head automatically falling to her hands. "I need a few minutes," she said, her voice dark and muffled._

_"Jane, we'll find her."_

_Her shoulders rocked with guilt, but she was silent, except for her repeated, fragile plea. "I just need a few minutes."_

_He knew she wanted him to leave, but he didn't, and instead winced as he lowered down beside her. They sat in silence, until Jane finally lifted her head, her eyes raw and red. "Maura."_

_It was all she said. Grief, pain, fear, wrapped in that small name._

"Korsak, what the hell is it?" Jane asked again as she shifted impatiently. He laid the journal on the table, not wanting to prolong her uncertainty. He had seen her live in it for too long, over the course of eleven days when she had ceased to exist: barely eating, barely speaking outside of her own worry. "This was recovered from the scene of Hoyt's cellar."

Her eyes flashed towards the book, her lips pursing in a straight line, but she swallowed, and he saw her thumbs circle the scars on her hands. "Who knows about this?"

"Just Frost and me and the goons that brought it over," Korsak replied, hoping to set her at ease. "I wanted you to know about it before I took it down to evidence."

"Did you look at it?" she asked, her voice wound tightly, as if any moment it would spiral out of control.

"It's just a bunch of psychotic ramblings, Jane," he answered. "And this fucker won't be writing anything ever again." He watched as she fingered the edge of it, almost afraid of opening it, as if it would release a hold onslaught of demons that she had worked to slay over the past three months. "I don't know if Maura will want to see it - " he began, but she cut him off with a deep, cutting glare.

"She doesn't need to know about this."

He nodded, placating her, the last one to offer advice on the subject. Still, he knew about trauma, and he had watched his partner process it after her own encounter with Hoyt. And the only thing that had helped her through the aftermath was slowly regaining control. "Jane, I know it's not on anyone's reading list, but she should at least know - "

"No." Jane pushed the journal away from her. "It's my job to protect her, and this will only send her right back down in that goddamn cellar."

"It's your job to help her, Jane, not protect her. Remember that." He pointed towards the book. "You want me to take it downstairs?"

She looked over at him, her eyes suddenly less angry. "What's in there?" she asked quietly.

Korsak stared at her for a moment. He had no idea what Maura had disclosed of her abduction, but he had seen Jane bent over her police statements and affidavits, studying them, as if looking for clues as to what had truly happened in that basement. "You already know what's in there."

Her shoulders slumped forward. "I don't know what happened to her." She looked over at him with a pair of exhausted eyes. "I only know what's in her statement." She balled her fists, pressing them onto the metal table. "It's been three months. I don't know what happened down there."

Korsak glanced once more at the book. "You gotta decide if that matters to you." He took a step toward her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Because looking through that book sure as hell isn't going to make things any easier." She didn't respond, but he didn't expect her to. Instead, she lifted the book, fingering its smooth leather before hurling it hard against the far wall. Its pages clacked loudly as if fluttered to the tiled floor, splayed open.

"Goddamn him," she breathed, angry tears leaking from her eyes. She wiped them away with a tight fist, more of a punishing gesture than anything else. "Just give me a minute," she said hoarsely. "Tell Frost I want to go with him to bag that son-of-a-bitch." She breathed again, her eyes still on the fluttered white pages of the book. "Just give me a minute."

Korsak pursed his lips, deciding to give her space. Before he left, he returned his hand to her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Whatever's in that book, whether you read it or burn it, just know that it's not your fault." He knew she would blame herself anyway, but it was the quiet, tough moments when he felt it his duty to remind her. He left quietly, shutting the door behind him, and giving his detective the space, and the silence, that she needed.

* * *

><p>Jane felt her phone at her tip like a ten-pound weight, each moment of its silence ratcheting up her panic. It was a fear based solely on projection, not based in reality, but she felt her heart pounding anyway. It had been less than half an hour since she had called Maura, letting her know that work would keep her later than usual. It hadn't been the arrest, or the questioning that had kept her, but her time in the interrogation room, staring at mud-brown cover of Hoyt's journal. She had finally ended her torturous internal debate by stuffing it into her desk drawer, where she could keep it as a talisman of guilt, even if she never summoned the courage to open it.<p>

She tried their home number again, an outdated artifact that they'd kept just as a precaution, but got nothing. She ran through their previous conversations, but nothing alluded to any reason why Maura would be unreachable at such an hour. This panic, this fear, was once again life after Hoyt.

She walked speedily down the basement hallway toward the morgue, peeking her head in the lab doors, but it was dark, spotless, and empty. She made her way to Maura's office, and felt the first sense of ease as she noticed the light still burning. "Maura?" she said, walking inside.

Her partner was curled onto the couch, a small pile of printed pages resting precariously in her hands, with several already fanned out on the floor. Her face was peaceful, a restiveness that Jane rarely saw anymore, and she was reluctant to wake her. Neither of them had been sleeping very well, but Maura's deprivation was unhealthy, and it took coaxing from Jane to make her take anything. Not that Jane could blame her. She knew about nightmares, about how they made you wake up just as exhausted as if you'd been awake all night.

She reached over and picked up the pages from the floor, glancing only briefly down at them. Rarely did she understand any of the medical jargon Maura read. It was like reading another language entirely. But this paper, she understood immediately. Strengthening Relationships through Post-Traumatic Stress. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she sat in the red chair across from the couch, now relishing its hardness, and bent her head towards the paper. It was written by two men and one woman, their names all followed by a whole alphabet of degrees.

The paper was no different than any of the others she had seen Maura read, highlight, and then discard. They both knew how to navigate their relationship, but ever the scientist, Maura consistently needed corroboration and new insight.

The sound of the rest of the papers falling to the floor startled her, and apparently the same applied to Maura, as the smaller blonde opened her eyes. She smiled breezily over at Jane, and it was these moments that they both craved: unbridled, unburdened existence, one not troubled by memories.

"You know, we have a bed at home," Jane said with a smile.

Maura leaned up, stretching her neck. "You said you were working late, so I thought I'd finish up some work here," she replied, the pockets under her eyes still prominent despite the extra sleep.

Jane held up the pages in her hand. "Looks like extra-curricular work to me."

Maura smiled faintly. "It wasn't that great of an article, apparently. Put me right to sleep."

Jane shrugged. "I'm surprised everything you read doesn't put you to sleep."

Maura tapped the couch next to her. "Come here," she offered.

Jane slipped up from her spot on the rigid, plastic chair, and slouched comfortably onto the couch, laying on her back and putting her head in Maura's lap. Her partner's fingers ran through her hair, a gesture entirely comforting that relaxed her forehead, which had been tightening with a headache for the past few hours. "Keep doing that, and you're going to put me to sleep," she said with a content smile.

"How's the case?" Maura asked. "Today was a long day for you all."

Jane sighed, enjoying the feel of her girlfriend's fingers in her hair. "It would have been better if we could have found the perp without a three-hour search," she said. "But we got him." She reached up, gently rubbing Maura's fingers before taking her hand. It was a tentative gesture she was used to doing now, as if asking permission to touch her girlfriend. She kissed the inside of Maura's wrist, a habit that she had before the abduction, which had only become more meaningful now that the skin had been marred. "Why don't we talk about something else?" she pressed. "Like getting out of here."

"Actions speak louder than words," Maura replied, already shifting. Jane followed her lead, swinging her feet back to the floor. Maura moved to her desk, flipping off her computer. "Maybe we can see if your mother wants to join us for dinner."

"Do we have dinner?"

"We can get dinner."

Jane nodded, now more than used to eating out of take-out containers and microwaving frozen meals. She watched Maura stack the journal articles neatly on her desk, although she more than likely didn't need to keep them. Still, they peppered her office, they were sprinkled over her desk at home, like constant affirmations of healing.

"Will you grab my jacket and purse from the closet?" Maura asked. "I think there's an umbrella in there, too, in case it's still raining."

Jane laughed softly. "Clearly you haven't been out of the lab all day. It stopped raining hours ago, Maur."

"Sometimes I really wish I had windows down here." She paused, and a darkness passed over her face, but she caught Jane's eye and smiled.

Jane reached into the closet, grabbing Maura's blazer, a familiar sensation running through the tips of her fingers as she recalled the last time she touched it.

_She slipped inside the bedroom, her feet taking her towards their closet. She had subconsciously avoided it, she realized, mostly living out of a drawer for the five days Maura had been gone. Stepping inside, she flicked on the light. Maura's side, brightly colored and feminine, with scattered lines and fabrics contrasted with her own side, which was sleek with black suits._

_She ran her hands over the clothes, pulling down a particularly versatile black blazer that Maura managed to pair with almost anything in her closet. She remembered the last time she had seen Maura wear it. Her wife's pomegranate scent still drifted from it. Numbness had enveloped her for the past two days, but as the familiar scent tickled something inside her, she felt a burst of explosive pain rock through her, buckling her knees._

_Her sob came as a heavy gasp and she pressed her face into the soft material of the jacket, muffling her fears and terror with its feminine scent. She had no idea how long she cried, but when she awoke on the closet floor, still gripping the jacket, her bedroom was dark. Her mother was asleep on the couch, CNN still blasting in the background. Jane muted it and went back to her post at the dining room table, where new statements, maps, and boxes of old evidence now colored her world._

"Jane?" Maura's voice was right behind her, and her arms wrapped around her waist, her head resting along her back. "What's wrong?"

"I'm wondering why we don't have a closet downstairs," she covered with a faint smile. "Frost needs somewhere to hang his plum-colored dress shirts."

Maura's muffled chuckle did nothing to thwart her feeling of cowardice, but she turned and pressed a kiss against the blonde hair.

"I already ate the whole bag of macarons," Maura said, giving her a sheepish smile. It was the old Maura, the one who had always looked hopefully up at her, waiting for a smile or a sarcastic frown. She rarely saw this old Maura, and she wanted nothing to erase the smile that peered up at her.

Jane wished she had some retort ready, but the smile caught her off guard, and she could do nothing but pull the smaller woman into her. "What's that add up to, like one whole cookie?" she asked, wrapping her hands around the now sinewy muscles of her back. "I think you could afford to eat a couple of more bags."

Maura pulled back from her, reaching around her to grab the black blazer. "Then maybe you can bring me more tomorrow," she replied with a tiny flicker of frivolity in her eye.

Intent on preserving the mood, Jane nodded. "Only if you let me eat something that comes with fries tonight." She waited, watching as Maura performed a last once-over of her office before flicking off the light and locking the door. As Jane followed her back upstairs and toward their cars, a hand constantly on the small of partner's back, she felt her burden of guilt slowly melt away, at least for a few moments. For now, her only goal was to protect Maura, and that meant protecting her from the monsters of her past.

* * *

><p><strong>As always, please let me know your thoughts. Thanks for reading.<strong>


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